


What You Can Do With an Hour

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: Closet [3]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Female Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Willow Rosenberg/Tara Maclay, Oz Never Left, Post Episode: s04e19 New Moon Rising, Slayer Problems, old fic, past Willow Rosenberg/Daniel "Oz" Osbourne, some proofreading we die liek mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 01:59:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17840258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: Buffy has the sniffles – an event so rare that she is bound and determined to milk it for all it’s worth, even if it means fending off witch-friends and their healing teas.





	What You Can Do With an Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Written about 10 years ago. Edited for clarity, but the content is mostly unchanged. Comments, questions, proofing issues? Please mention them in the comments :)

“Stop plying me with tea!  It just makes me have to blow my nose.”

“Being congested makes you have to blow your nose, Buffy.”

She glared at Willow, holding a steaming mug of something admittedly fragrant under her nose. Which she turned up.  “Hah!  Shows what you know.  See that stack of tissues. It grows exponentially every time one of you makes drink something hot.”

“Oh come on Buf—”

“No.”

Willow rolled her eyes in exasperation and kneeled up off the bed. She went to the door. “Oz!”

He and Buffy were wearing identical expressions of pain when he entered.  “Dog ears, Will.”

“Slayer ears, Will.”

“Oh! Sorry, forgot.  Hey, what?  Slayer ears?   Since when?”  If not for the oversized mug of hot liquid she would have put her hands on her hips.

“Apparently, since I got sick.”

“Hunh.  That’s interesting.  You should tell Giles.”

“Why, so he can put it in his journal?  He's not even officially a Watcher anymore but half the time when I pass his place at half past the middle of the night I can see him in the window writin' away.”

“Maybe he just likes journaling?”

Buffy frowned at Oz.  “No one likes journaling that much. We need to get him set up.”

“True though that may be,” Willow hastily broke in before the conversation could get too far off track, “you, Missy, need to drink this tea.”

“I swear—” 

“Oz, get her to drink the tea please.”  Willow thrust the mug at him and left the room.   “Thanks!”

“Hey, where are you going?!”  Buffy half got off her bed, but Oz stood in the way of her legs.

“Some of us have homework to do!” Willow called out over her shoulder.

“It's college!”

“Exactly!”

Disgusted with her genius friend, the one now out of earshot not the one still standing in her way, Buffy flopped back on her bed. She made room for Oz as he sat on the narrow bed, steaming mug of tea still in hand.

“So I thought Slayers didn't get sick.”

“We don't.  We get sniffles.  Actually…”   She settled herself more deeply into the pillows propped up behind her.  “Actually according to the not-as-cute-as-he'd-be-on-a-tv-medi-drama doctor, I have chest congestion.”

“You were expecting cuter?”

“Oz, let's stick to the topic at hand.”

“I don't know. That was a very long qualifier you gave him. Sounds like the topic at hand.”

She made a face.  “As if that means anything.  This is me we're talking about.  The only time you can get two seriously serious sentences out of me is when I'm yelling at Dawn or when it's all going down the tubes. Like how Giles stops stuttering?  I stop Buffy-speaking.”

“You are kinda reliable that way.”

“See.”

“So about this not-as-cute-as-he'd-be-on-a-tv-medi-drama doctor—”

“Hey!  On the one hand I am impressed that you managed to say that pretty much word for word—”

“I try.”

“—on the other hand, one track mind much? Sheesh.”  She took the cup he handed her and sipped at it.

“And yet no answering of the question.”

“And observant to boot!  You are nefarious Mr. Osborne. Were you always nefarious or is being a Scooby corrupting you?”

“Dingoes Ate My Baby.”

“Huh?”

“The band.  Devon.  I was with them before I met you guys.”

“You're right.  You were corrupt before we met you.  And yet my Slayer sense didn't go off at all.”

“Not corrupt.  Nefarious.”

“Oh that's right.  And nefariousness is so…normal.  I don't think my Slayer sense has a setting for Nefarious.”

“Maybe you could get a software update.”

Shrugging, Buffy cradled the warm mug in her hands and took a long swallow.  “Hmm, good stuff.  Will really outdid herself—  Hey!  You tricked me, Mister!”

“You were the one who said—”

“Ha!”

They looked up.  Willow was standing in the door pointing at Buffy with one hand while trying to juggle far too many books in the other.  “I knew he'd get you drink the tea.”

“Sneaky little puppy,” Buffy groused, “hiding behind the tea in question.”

Oz slid forward on the bed, ready to help Willow against the war with her books.  The books were winning.

His feet hadn't quite made it to the floor when another pair of hands caught the first book before it could slide away from the rest. Feeling the shift, but unaware that she had help, Willow's eyes widened as she bent at the knees in a vain effort to recover what she had lost.

“I-I got it.”

Oz slid back against the headboard with Buffy and her pillows.  Willow turned to see who was behind her.  Her face lit up. “Tara!”

The blond offered her a small, shy smile.  “Hi.  I…I saw the books and—”

“Thanks!  I don't know what came over me.”

“Amazement at my rare display at following orders,” Buffy supplied, breaking into their moment.

Willow snorted.  “Right, that was it.  I don't know how Oz does it.”

Lips thinning, Buffy wholeheartedly agreed.

“Anyway, gang, I am off to that wonderful monument to learning—”

“The mall?”

“Buffy!”

“What?”

“I was going to say the library.”

“Oh.  That.”

“Yeah.  That.”  Willow stuck her tongue out at her friend.  “I'll see you guys later. Thanks again, Oz.”

He gave her a brief nod as she and Tara turned out of the doorway.

“Well…  You didn't growl this time.  Not even a little.  That's an improvement, isn't it?”

“Major.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought.”

“Haven't tried to rip her throat out all year.”

“I'd have to kill you Oz.  Please don't do that.”

“I'm a little anti the dying thing myself.”

“I'm serious.”

“Me, too.”

She sniffed a little.  “Okay.” She handed him Mr. Pointy.

They fell into companionable silence as Buffy sipped her tea, now lukewarm, and Oz contented himself with warming himself against her side.  His head drifted along the headboard until it touched hers. “So if Slayers don’t get sick, why are you in bed?”

“I told you I have the sniffles.”

“Hardly bed-worthy.”

“Are you kidding me?  Do you know how hard it is for me to even get the sniffles? I have to milk this for all it's worth.  Besides, look at it out there. It's all…sunny.  And happy.  With people playing and, and…and frolicking”.  She shuddered.  “Who'd want to go out there?”

“Good question.”

 

Fin[ite]


End file.
